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Ole Miss Upsets Texas Tech in Cotton Bowl
In a surprise performance capped by 81 total points scored, Ole Miss rolled over Texas Tech in part due to big plays on defense, including an interception returned for a touchdown and a safety against Tech.
SI's Don Banks Sees Hope for Saints 2008
In this Don Banks' Inside the NFL column this week, he lists the Top 5 most improved teams of the off season (meaning talent signed and gained), listing the New Orleans Saints at #3 and predicting a rise from 7-9 to 11-5 next season.
CBS Cuts Away from Saints-Jax Game?!?
WTF? All the sudden I'm watching the Cincinnati - Buffalo game right after Jacksonville marched down the field to score. And now we're watching Chad Johnson get hurt and pulled from the field in an ambulance -- let's hope and pray he's alright.
Saints Stumble to 12-0
The Saints lost the coin toss going into overtime against the Washington Redskins, a team that had arguably beat them on everything except voodoo, karma and the "luck of the call." But, in the end, a fumble recovery and a field goal from the one yard line left the Saints with a perfect 12-0 record and a lot of people -- Redskins fans among them -- shaking their heads.
The Best in Sports in the Next Seven Days
Thursday, Jan. 13
High school basketball, Battle of the Border Basketball Classic: The boys prep showcase at the Mississippi Coliseum has expanded to two days. Saturday's games: St. Andrew's vs. Corinth (1 p.m.). Madison Central vs. Ridgeland (3:15 p.m.), Lanier vs. South Gwinett, Ga. (5 p.m.).
Alt.geek: Net Neutrality and Microsoft's New Heart
Net Neutrality—that all-important political Internet fight that few folks grok. The concept popped up in the context of the "Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunity Reform Act," a piece of legislation essentially written by the Telcos to allow them to start offering you television over your phone line, thus opening up "competition" between them and the cable and satellite services. That might be a minor positive for us dear ol' consumers, as it could mean that the phone company will offer you a bundle of DSL, TV and phone service for $3 less than the cable company offers that same bundle. Yippie.
Apple's iTV and SlingBox TV
This week Apple whipped its hype machine into full gear to introduce a series of new iPod and iTunes related products. The most exciting offering might be the rare preview that Apple gave of its upcoming device—codenamed "iTV"—a set-top box designed to allow you to stream iTunes videos from a Mac or PC running iTunes 7 to your television. The bad news? It won't be ready until the first quarter of 2007.
Attack of the State Street Sandwiches
If there's anything Jackson offers in spades it's a good lunch—particularly plate lunches and meat-and-veggie smorgasbords such as Collins' Dream Kitchen, Two Sisters, George Street Grocery, 930 Blues Café, Gloria's Kitchen, and many others. But what you may not be getting enough of are some of the city's best new sandwiches. In fact, returning students may not even know about some of these places as they've all opened their doors in the past year or less. And here's another odd fact—all three have opened within two miles of each other on State Street—biking distance for Millsaps, UMC and Belhaven students and only a short drive for Tougaloo's and JSU's sandwich fans.
Tort Reform
October 28, 2004 "Tort reform"—which, in the past few years, has primarily meant capping non-economic damages in medical- and product-liability lawsuits—has been a major political football in Mississippi over the past few years, including a huge driver in election-year fundraising and a serious component of our recent race for the governor's mansion. Early this summer, in a special session, tort-reform interests won a $500,000 cap on pain and suffering damages in all medical liability cases, along with in any general business liability case. The Bush administration believes that tort reform should happen at the federal level, and it has introduced a federal cap of $250,000 of non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases. But it hasn't passed Congress. Instead, tort-reform supporters have focused on individual states, where they've had success placing caps in more than 23 states in the past 15 years.
Clarion-Ledger to Independents: Drop Dead!
May 9, 2006 Want to know how far The Clarion-Ledger/Gannett Corp. is willing to go to control the competition? Keep reading. This past Monday, I sat down in Cups in Fondren with Lee Warmouth, the circulation director of The Clarion-Ledger, so that he could tell me about an "exciting new service" that his company has devised for free-distribution papers like the Jackson Free Press.
The Economy and Taxation
October 28, 2004 "It's the Economy, Stupid," is the famous line posted on the Clinton campaign's war room wall during the 1992 campaign. The conventional wisdom is that in most election years, people vote with their pocketbooks—if the economy has been good under an incumbent, he'll often be re-elected; if it's been bad, then the incumbent faces an uphill battle. The situation faced by the Bush administration has been anything but typical. There has indeed been a recession, and there's been wartime spending. The economy was declared to have been in recovery as early as 2001 by many academics, although there was fighting over that until mid-2003. In the past year, about 1.7 million private -sector jobs have been created; while this is good news, job growth seems to have slowed in the summer of 2004. Economists say about 1.6 million jobs must be created per year to keep up with population growth, meaning unemployment levels remain flat or, when adjusted for "discouraged" workers, actually continue to rise somewhat. The Bush administration will face the election with a net job loss—the first administration to do so since the Hoover administration in 1933.
Jackson Convention Center: The $65 Million Question
Update: On Thursday morning, Jeff Good and Dan Blumenthal, owners of BRAVO! and Broad Street restaurants, announced that they were pledging 1% of their sales between now and the election to the Capital City Convention fund. Good and Blumenthal both expressed support for the convention center, saying it would be good for business and downtown Jackson. Good says they chose the 1% approach "to validate how inconsequential 1% is to a restaurant transaction, when compared to the great good it can serve." Good estimated that his company's total donation could be $5000 or more, based on the prior year's sales. by Todd Stauffer
Meet MIPA
June 14, 2006 As you may know by now, The Clarion-Ledger has recently revealed The Distribution Network (TDN), a scheme to control the distribution of free publications in the Jackson Metro. The Clarion-Ledger met with area retailers, telling them that the newspaper would be happy to clean up the "mess" of free distribution racks in front of their stores by offering a single, 9-panel distribution box owned by the C-L. All the retailer has to do is sign away to The C-L the exclusive right to manage free publication distribution in exchange for 25 percent of the big box's revenue to the retailer. (That tops out at $12 under the current pricing.)
Hail To The Staff
July 6, 2005 This is the 101st issue of the Jackson Free Press. We set out three years ago to bring independent journalism (and the best entertainment coverage) to Jackson, Miss., based on the "alt-weekly" model that is successful in other markets from the Village Voice to the Chicago Reader to the Nashville Scene, Memphis Flyer and many of the top 120 or so media markets. We had a kitchen table, some know-how, and the rich tapestry of Jackson and Mississippi to work with. The three-year trip we've made to become Jackson's news and entertainment weekly has been both grueling and gratifying.
The War in Iraq
October 7, 2004 It appears that the single most important issue of this campaign is the war in Iraq. Even as other domestic and security issues are part of the debate, it seems that the American electorate will demand that the president they elect be able to bring a successful and relatively swift conclusion to end of the war in Iraq—somehow. Perhaps for that reason, it's the most difficult issue to pin the candidates down on. To say that President Bush's approach is "steady as she goes" and Kerry's is "to change the direction" is an oversimplification that would seem to utterly ignore the actual issues and problems on the ground in Iraq. Both candidates have positions that are more nuanced, and both appear to be less than candid on how their approach will solve the problem.
Mr. Newhouse: Think ‘Community'
July 5, 2006 Get up to speed on The Clarion-Ledger's scheme here. Or, see Darren Schwindaman's TDN cartoon primer. Editor & Publisher magazine—a national industry bible for journalists, newspapers and news magazines—has a story in its current issue about the free distribution schemes that Gannett Corp. newspapers are implementing around the country. The story focused in large part on TDN ("The Distribution Network") in Jackson, Miss., spearheaded by the Clarion-Ledger.
The Alternative to What?
July 20, 2005 One question I'm asked frequently about the Jackson Free Press is why we call ourselves "alternative." It's a good question—with an easy answer that I don't even have to think about anymore. We're the alternative to the (tired, old, gray, craggy) daily newspaper.
UPDATED: Levee Board Approves ‘One Lake' Plan, Not ‘Two'
Members of the Rankin-Hinds Pearl Flood and Drainage Control District held a press conference this afternoon at the Mississippi TelCom Center, where chairman Billy Orr announced that the District has selected a flood control plan for Metro Jackson, called the "Lower Lake" plan. The plan will incorporate nearly all the levees recommended in the Comprehensive Levee Plan that the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers created in the mid-1990s, but adds a weir to the Pearl River just south of I-20, causing the Pearl to flood and form a single lake from I-20 to just north of Lakeland Drive, across from downtown Jackson.
Readers, Advertisers and Community
The Jackson Free Press, as with any for-profit publication, is designed to appeal to two constituencies: the reader and the advertiser. In these pages, the reader will find examples of the writing, research, coverage and reporting that they can expect from the Jackson Free Press.
When A Plan Comes Together
"I love it when a plan comes together" was the signature line of George Peppard in his role as Hannibal Smith on the 1980s TV show "The A Team." It's unfortunate that I can't get it out of my head, but it's apropos in more ways than one. I recently saw George Peppard again in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," as I seem to be on an inadvertent VHS tour of Audrey Hepburn's career. Because many of my neural pathways were developed in the 1980s, it's difficult for me to see Peppard in any setting and not think of Hannibal Smith. It's my own personal hell.